What Stormfront Really Said At The End Of The Boys Season 2 Finale
Contains major spoilers for The Boys season 2 finale
On The Boys season 2 finale, Stormfront (Aya Cash) learns a very important lesson: Never attempt to kill a junior Supe's mom right in front of them.
After receiving a beating from Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara), Starlight (Erin Moriarty), and Queen Maeve (Dominique McElligott), Stormfront flies off to stop Becca (Shantel VanSanten) and Butcher (Karl Urban) from taking Ryan (Cameron Crovetti) to safety. Unfortunately for Stormfront, seeing someone choking his mom is enough to trigger Ryan's powers, and he uses his heat vision to blast off her limbs, leaving her seemingly near death and babbling in German.
Given what fans know about Stormfront, it would seem safe to assume she was spouting Nazi rhetoric. But thanks to Reddit user u/Raidoton, Stormfront's final words (for season 2 at least — Homelander insists she's still alive in an undisclosed location) have been revealed to be surprisingly human.
According to u/Raidoton, Stormfront says at the end of The Boys season 2 finale, "Es war so schön. Wie wir dort zu dritt gesessen, im Schatten eines Apfelbaums. Erinnerst du dich an den Tag, Frederick? Chloe hat die Arme aus dem Autofenster gestreckt. Wir haben den perfekten Platz am Fluss gefunden, im Schatten eines Apfelbaums. Es war das erste mal dass Chloe frische Äpfel gegessen hat."
Her words translate to English as, "It was so beautiful. How the three of us sat there, in the shade of an apple tree. Do you remember the day, Frederick? Chloe had her arms stretched out of the car window. We found the perfect spot by the river, in the shade of an apple tree. It was the first time Chloe ate fresh apples."
Later, when Homelander (Antony Starr) and Ryan are talking, Stormfront adds, "War so glücklich. Es war herrlich. Ich wollte dass er nie zu Ende geht." In English, that means, "... was so happy. It was wonderful. I never wanted it to end."
Why does Stormfront think about her husband and daughter in her final moments of season 2?
It would appear that in what Stormfront believes to be her final moments, she doesn't think back to her hateful beliefs or the atrocities that she's committed. Instead, she remembers a quiet day with her husband and daughter, and she yearns to return to what she sees as a simpler time. At first, the scene's translation may be viewed as The Boys writers attempting to humanize a truly despicable person, but in truth, Stormfront's final words both reinforce the strong theme of family that runs throughout season 2, and also act as a reminder of just how twisted her worldview is.
Stormfront may remember an idyllic day of lounging under an apple tree as a picture-perfect family moment, but in reality, she and her husband were fighting for mass genocide and hateful, racist ideals. Whether she calls herself Lady Liberty or Stormfront, she can't stop trying to push an agenda of fear, death, and hatred. Right from the beginning of season 2, she shows her hand: Stormfront wants to recreate the past — which, for her, means the early days of Nazi Germany — so it only makes sense that she would retreat there while in a state of shock.
Stormfront's final scene reinforces the themes of The Boys season 2 in a major way
In an interview with Variety, showrunner Eric Kripke discussed how The Boys season 2 puts the idea of family ties right at its center. Whether it was Butcher confronting just how similar he is to his father, or Stormfront reminiscing to Starlight about her mother Adele, the relationships between parents and their children was a recurring theme throughout the season. For Kripke, having Ryan — rather than Kimiko or Starlight — be the one to end Stormfront's reign of terror was about bringing that theme full circle.
"What we kept coming back to was that we really needed to demonstrate how powerful Ryan was — and still have Starlight and Kimiko and Maeve get a certain visceral satisfaction with what they're doing but have the final ending be really wrenching and emotional and personal," Kripke said to Variety. "So we felt [like] going back to how we really opened the season, which was that it's really about family and [the question of] can they survive it? You just try things, and that felt like it really resonated the most."
Ultimately, Kripke described Butcher's dad as the demon on his shoulder, and Becca as his humanity. Thankfully for Ryan, Butcher's humanity wins out when he decides to keep his promise to protect the boy. For the moment, Butcher's resisting his father's legacy of violence, and he's hoping that thanks to Becca's influence, Ryan will be able to do the same where Homelander, Ryan's biological father, is concerned.
Eventually, everything comes back to the theme of family on The Boys, even for characters as monstrous as Stormfront and Homelander.